> This is quite simple. Markets ignore the commons, hence a free
market

> solution can't - or is highly unlikely - to work.
Yes, but this is circular. You're saying that the market cannot work
for things that you do not allow to be part of the market. The
government has to exist, otherwise how is the government to exist?

It isn't part of the market because no one wants it to be, not
because no one allows it to be.

> No one is going to clean

> up the commons, just as they didn't in medieval villages, because
there is

> no incentive for an individual, or a specific group, to do so.
The medieval times were not exactly a period of free market, so this
would be an example on how government can solve things... or not. In
reality, many of the things we learned in high school about medieval
times are myths or gross simplifications

Not the tragedy of the commons, however. But even if it was the
logic would hold.

> The tragedy

> of the commons is one reason to have governments, because
everyone wants
> something done that no one will do "off their own bat" - but they
are

> prepared to chip in a donation towards the government doing it, or
> organising somone else to do it.
If they are prepared to chip in a donation there is no problem. If

there is money to be made, the free market will be glad to oblige.
You

don't seem prepared to call things by its names: the idea of
government is that, when people are not prepared to chip in, they are

forced to do so, ultimately by violent means. The paradox here is
that

you are trusting a small group of people with this coercive power and
then expecting this small group and power asymmetry to result in more
altruism.
Again, reality is complex. Current forms of democracy would not work
if implemented in previous cultures, because people would not accept
the social norms that come with them. You cannot police everything or
even 1% of what's going on. Systems work because they become stable.

This stability does not come from consent (I was born into this
system

and never consented to it, neither did you). It comes from the
emergence of sets of incentives. I disagree with many laws that I'm

not going to break because the personal cost to me would be too
great.

Suppose I decide I don't trust the government with my tax money, so I

decide to take it instead and give it directly to organisations
that I

deem worthy: hospitals, schools, research centres and so on. I would
end up in jail for "chipping in". In fact government robs me of my
freedom to chip in, because they take all of my "chip in" money and
then some, and then give it to banks.

Incentives also emerge from free markets, importantly the incentive
to

be nice to the people you trade with. Where there are more trade
routes there are less wars. If you are polluting the air I breath you
are being hostile towards me, and I am less likely to want to enter a
transaction with you. But these delicate balances can't arise under
coercion and market distortion.
> And if no one does it, we all end up worse

> off (perhaps fatally so in this case). It ain't rocket science,
although

> game theory has something to say about it.
Prisoner dilemma scenarios don't magically disappear once you
introduce coercion. In fact, I argue that they multiply.

You seem to be arguing against a straw man here. I explained why
the free market can't fix the tragedy of the commons. You haven't
answered my point.

And he's so concerned with anti-government straw men that he hasn't
noticed that a market requires government (including coercion) to
define ownership and punish fraud. Without government you couldn't
own any more stuff than you could carry and defend by force of arms.

I agree with Brent. Government can be the best thing a democracy can
have, ... until bandits get power and perverts the elections and the
state power separations (and get important control on the media, etc.).

But we should make clear that a government has nothing to say about
your food, medications, sports, religious or sexual practices, etc. As
long as there are no well-motivated complains, the state can't
intervene.